Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/255

134234 [sic] in their posterity not (properly) divers offences; but such as by a kind of communion of seed, have been still linked and coupled together, and never discontinued. But to omit these higher speculations, and to deal with you, in a more popular way of reasoning. You must know this that God joynes those things, which we (through ignorance and unskilfulness) use to sever, and that he considers Families, Cities, and Kingdomes; not as divided but as one Body and Nature: The Family of the Scipio's or the Cæsars is one thing to him. Rome or Athens, for the whole time of their duration, were but one to him; and so was the Roman Empire, and that very justly, for the Society of the same laws, and priviledges, is that bond which unites these great bodyes, and intitles them though in several ages, to a communion in partaking of rewards and punishments. Were then the Scipio's of old good? That Hea- Rh